Elder Jeremy Day is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from November 2014 to November 2016 in the Virginia Richmond Mission.

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Finding with Cats and Chinese Take Out #9

Okay, so this may sound slightly strange but it seems even stranger
how it happened,

Where we live there is a really
good Chinese takeout/delivery place so the first time we ordered it
for dinner, we were just knocking doors to find people in the area (as well as
we didn't want to be in the house, we wanted to work, but we also didn't really
want to cook for dinner that night).

We knocked into a less active family's house just because my
companion Elder Hopkins asked what door we should knock on and I said the first
one with lights on- that was the less active family's house and they were like
"We have wanted to come back to church but never found a good reason...
looks like you are it!" so we were cheering inside and talked with them
about Christmas and the New Years and stuff and then said that we had dinner to
eat so we went home, had Chinese food. No big deal right?

Photo texted to us by a member

Well this week (that was 2 or so weeks ago) we had another situation
where we didn't want to cook and so decided on Chinese takeout place again
(same one) and were knocking doors again waiting for our food and lo and behold
we knocked on the door of a different less active member and their spouse who
wasn't a member and they both wanted to come to church. The husband who wasn't
a member wasn't really interested a few years back when the missionaries
stopped by, but because he had 3 different experiences this hunting season
where in his mind he literally thought these words "if I get a deer I’ll
go to church" and each and every time he shot a deer, so he was basically
telling us that someone wanted him to go and when we knocked on his door, he
was on the couch thinking about it. Strange things happen with Chinese
delivery... He came to church and had a super good experience each time!

Miracles are amazing -when we see those whom the Lord has prepared,
how he prepares them and how we find out about them as missionaries.

Another
crazy story was again when we were knocking doors and I was thinking in my head
"dang, I wish we had a guide we could see to lead us to places we could
knock and they will talk with us" and not 2 minutes later did a tail-less
stray cat bolt out from under a car and stood right in front of us, we kind of
looked at it and we started walking, then it waked ahead of us and walked
straight up to an apartment door. we knocked and it was someone that became a
potential investigator right off the bat. It was crazy! This happened the 2hrs
we were tracting where we'd follow the cat (we named it Doug) and every like
5th or 6th door they kept saying come back, its cool to see how things are put
in our lives to give us hope.

Another day we went street contacting in downtown Richmond with
mission president’s approval and we talked to a ton of people! There was a man
named Fred who said his New Year’s resolution was to be more close to God and
to find a religion that could do that. So we taught him about God's plan of happiness
and why we are here on earth. It was a great lesson and he said he wanted to
get baptized! So we set up the 31st and then gave him a Book of Mormon and then
said goodbye, this was all one street contact.

Crazy stuff, I had my first zone meeting and it was really a boost
of encouragement. That’s where the leaders of a big area that many missionaries
give training conferences to everyone in that "zone" (about like 20
missionaries total). We always have good foodstuffs that the members of the
ward feed us so that’s a good sign. Here me and Doug.